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Current Opinion in Organ Transplantation was launched in 1996. It is part of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The field of organ transplantation is divided into 18 sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce the Section Editors for this issue.

Section Editors

Shimon Kusne

Shimon Kusne earned his M.D. degree in 1975 from University of Bologna, Italy. After early training in internal medicine in Israel, he completed a fellowship in internal medicine (1981–1984) and a fellowship in infectious diseases (1984–1987) at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, USA. During these fellowships Dr Kusne developed a special interest and research program in the special case of infections and infectious disease in solid organ transplant recipients. In 1987 he became assistant professor, and in 1994, associate professor, in the Departments of Medicine and Surgery, at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and the Thomas Starzl Transplantation Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He served there as the director of transplant infectious diseases until 2003. In 2003 Dr Kusne relocated to Mayo Clinic Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona.

Currently, Dr Kusne is Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. He also serves as Chair of the Division of Infectious Diseases, and Director of the Transplant Infectious Disease Program in the Department of Internal Medicine. He is board-certified in internal medicine and in infectious diseases. Dr Kusne has published extensively in numerous medical journals in the field of infectious complications in transplant recipients and transplant candidates, frequently serves as a reviewer for many medical journals, and until recently was an associate editor for the journal Liver Transplantation. His special interests include the transmission and course of fungal and viral infections, and tissue and organ donor-transmitted infections.

Donald E. Hricik

Donald E. Hricik, M.D. earned his undergraduate degree in 1973 from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana and his medical degree in 1977 at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, DC, USA. His training included an internship and residency in medicine, as well as clinical and research fellowships in nephrology at the New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr Hricik is currently Professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Director of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio. He also serves as the medical director of kidney and pancreas transplantation at University Hospitals Case Medical Center.

Board certified in internal medicine and nephrology, Dr Hricik has played a leadership role with the American Society of Transplantation, having served on its Board of Councillors and also chairing a number of its committees. He currently serves as the Postgraduate Education Director for that society. He holds memberships in the American Society of Nephrology and The Transplantation Society.

Dr Hricik has served on the editorial boards of Graft, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, American Journal of Kidney Diseases, and Transplantation. He has co-authored seven medical books and is the editor of Kidney Transplantation: State of the Art. A widely published author of journal articles, abstracts, and book chapters, Dr Hricik has lectured both nationally and internationally on topics including long-term care in kidney transplantation and new approaches to immunosuppression. His clinical research has focused on complications of immunosuppression and immune monitoring of kidney transplant recipients.

Clark K. Colton

Clark K. Colton is Professor of Chemical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. He received his bachelor's degree from Cornell University in 1964 and PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969, both in chemical engineering, after which he stayed to join the faculty. He served as deputy head of Chemical Engineering in 1977 to 1978 and was Bayer Professor of Chemical Engineering from 1981 to 1986.

Over his career, Dr Colton has published about 230 papers reflecting his research in diverse areas of biomedical engineering, including artificial organs, biomedical membrane separation processes, physiological mass transfer, implantable devices, and biomaterial interaction with tissue. Development of technology for improving diabetes treatment has been a continuous thread over the past 30 years, including development of glucose sensors and biohybrid artificial pancreas devices. Recently, his laboratory has focused on assessment of the quality of islets of Langerhans for transplantation to cure diabetes and improvement of islet tissue quality through cell culture as well as novel methods for improving the viability and functional performance of microencapsulated islets. Most recently he and his students have investigated the role of oxygen in stem cell growth and differentiation and have shown that culture at low oxygen levels can influence the timing and magnitude of gene expression of transcription factors that influence pluripotency and cell lineage selection. Dr Colton has received awards for his research from a variety of organizations, including the Camille and Henry Drefus Foundation, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Society for Engineering Education, the International Society for Blood Purification, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Engineering Foundation.